General admission bias in favor of male applicants

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women control k-12 education and now college. They design the experience and set the expectations. When girls do relatively worse on standardized tests, they de-emphasize standardized tests. Everything about education these days is hostile to masculine energy which is of course considered toxic. Look at the books your son has to read in English class. The college application process itself favors girls- cultivating relationships with teachers for recommendations where they divulge all their feelings and dreams, getting involved in all these silly organizations. The system is dominated by women and rigged against boys.

Leadership positions at both k-12 and college level are overwhelmingly male.

"Leadership" at K-12 doesn't even matter. If your kid's school has a male principal, your kid will never even see him. The teachers your kids interact with all day every day are overwhelmingly female. In short, as the PP said, women control K-12 education where it matters - at the pit face - they control the experience from end to end. That female teachers have failed boys is certainly a plausible argument based on the outcome.

My son has done great in public school with almost entirely female teachers. No one’s failed him. Expectations for behavior and academic performance begin at home. So many parents letting their boys play video games and watch YouTube for hours and hours every day and then complaining that the school system is rigged against them. Pathetic.

Your education has failed you if you think muh anecdote means anything. Writ large, the education system has clearly failed boys. And that system is run by women.

Oh yeah, who makes the rules and sets the expectations at home? Also women.

You are fooling yourself. Boys have almost always been educated by women. The system is not failing boys. Rather boys are rejecting education.

Boys are very definitely educated differently now than they were when I was a kid.

And if one accepts the (asinine and false) claim that boys are rejecting education, I guess that means your conclusion is "oh well let's give up on boys then"? One could note that over the past decades, whenever girls are "underrepresented" in any educational area (most notably STEM) there is a huge push to fix this and to encourage girls to study the subject. But when boys fall behind, the reaction from women is shrug, "oh well, what can you do."

Disgusting.

No, exactly opposite. You made a wrong assumption! Perhaps I didn’t string my argument together coherently….we absolutely do need to fix what’s going on with boys, and we need to make adjustments to public education. I suggest we look to private schools as a model bc they’re doing an excellent job educating boys. Public school classrooms are big, noisy and have no rules. We should give them lots of room to goof off and horse around outside of class, but inside the teachers need to hold them accountable, and create an environment where it’s ok to be smart. Someone upthread suggested school is oriented toward females, with the implication being that if we relax the classroom boys will thrive. Earlier I pointed out the classroom environment has been loosened considerably, but boy performance has only gotten worse.

Why are they seemingly not interested? I think for social reasons. Outside of private school environments, there is not social cache to being smart. At my child’s public school the smart boys are almost entirely kids of immigrants! Which is another interesting dynamic

+1

This! Volunteer in any public high school class and you will see that teachers spend 90% of their time on the boys in the class. There is no discipline or expectations. The boys (not all) control the whole classroom environment. The girls (for the most part) sit quietly and do their best to do what they're told. It starts at home. Parents aren't teaching their boys the importance of education and respect. Boys these days play video games and watch porn all day and could care less about anything else.

So, you either have no sons and therefore don’t know anything about which you speak or you have sons that you have parented so horribly that all
they do is play video games or watch porn. Either way, you don’t have a right to generalize about average boys. Because your generalizations couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Could you imagine the outrage if someone said that all girls care about is makeup, eating disorders, and catching a husband? You crazies would be going ballistic because it’s not a fair generalization.

I’m not the PP and I have a boy and I have to say the struggle against gaming addiction for boys is real. It is a frequent topic of conversation among other parents of boys. I found mention of a study that says 19 percent of teen boys may have a gaming disorder (compared to 8 percent of girls). So while not common to all boys, could be a significant enough phenomenon to account for at least some of the difference in educational outcomes.

And girls battle ED’s at a much higher percentage than boys do. Should we boil them down to a group who cares about nothing but their looks and getting thinner?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women control k-12 education and now college. They design the experience and set the expectations. When girls do relatively worse on standardized tests, they de-emphasize standardized tests. Everything about education these days is hostile to masculine energy which is of course considered toxic. Look at the books your son has to read in English class. The college application process itself favors girls- cultivating relationships with teachers for recommendations where they divulge all their feelings and dreams, getting involved in all these silly organizations. The system is dominated by women and rigged against boys.

Leadership positions at both k-12 and college level are overwhelmingly male.

"Leadership" at K-12 doesn't even matter. If your kid's school has a male principal, your kid will never even see him. The teachers your kids interact with all day every day are overwhelmingly female. In short, as the PP said, women control K-12 education where it matters - at the pit face - they control the experience from end to end. That female teachers have failed boys is certainly a plausible argument based on the outcome.

My son has done great in public school with almost entirely female teachers. No one’s failed him. Expectations for behavior and academic performance begin at home. So many parents letting their boys play video games and watch YouTube for hours and hours every day and then complaining that the school system is rigged against them. Pathetic.

Your education has failed you if you think muh anecdote means anything. Writ large, the education system has clearly failed boys. And that system is run by women.

Oh yeah, who makes the rules and sets the expectations at home? Also women.

You are fooling yourself. Boys have almost always been educated by women. The system is not failing boys. Rather boys are rejecting education.

Boys are very definitely educated differently now than they were when I was a kid.

And if one accepts the (asinine and false) claim that boys are rejecting education, I guess that means your conclusion is "oh well let's give up on boys then"? One could note that over the past decades, whenever girls are "underrepresented" in any educational area (most notably STEM) there is a huge push to fix this and to encourage girls to study the subject. But when boys fall behind, the reaction from women is shrug, "oh well, what can you do."

Disgusting.

No, exactly opposite. You made a wrong assumption! Perhaps I didn’t string my argument together coherently….we absolutely do need to fix what’s going on with boys, and we need to make adjustments to public education. I suggest we look to private schools as a model bc they’re doing an excellent job educating boys. Public school classrooms are big, noisy and have no rules. We should give them lots of room to goof off and horse around outside of class, but inside the teachers need to hold them accountable, and create an environment where it’s ok to be smart. Someone upthread suggested school is oriented toward females, with the implication being that if we relax the classroom boys will thrive. Earlier I pointed out the classroom environment has been loosened considerably, but boy performance has only gotten worse.

Why are they seemingly not interested? I think for social reasons. Outside of private school environments, there is not social cache to being smart. At my child’s public school the smart boys are almost entirely kids of immigrants! Which is another interesting dynamic

+1

This! Volunteer in any public high school class and you will see that teachers spend 90% of their time on the boys in the class. There is no discipline or expectations. The boys (not all) control the whole classroom environment. The girls (for the most part) sit quietly and do their best to do what they're told. It starts at home. Parents aren't teaching their boys the importance of education and respect. Boys these days play video games and watch porn all day and could care less about anything else.

So, you either have no sons and therefore don’t know anything about which you speak or you have sons that you have parented so horribly that all
they do is play video games or watch porn. Either way, you don’t have a right to generalize about average boys. Because your generalizations couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Could you imagine the outrage if someone said that all girls care about is makeup, eating disorders, and catching a husband? You crazies would be going ballistic because it’s not a fair generalization.

I’m not the PP and I have a boy and I have to say the struggle against gaming addiction for boys is real. It is a frequent topic of conversation among other parents of boys. I found mention of a study that says 19 percent of teen boys may have a gaming disorder (compared to 8 percent of girls). So while not common to all boys, could be a significant enough phenomenon to account for at least some of the difference in educational outcomes.

And girls battle ED’s at a much higher percentage than boys do. Should we boil them down to a group who cares about nothing but their looks and getting thinner?

DP. If 19% of girls had an ED it would also be worth exploring what impact that has on academics. In fact, I would be surprised if such studies hadn't been done already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women control k-12 education and now college. They design the experience and set the expectations. When girls do relatively worse on standardized tests, they de-emphasize standardized tests. Everything about education these days is hostile to masculine energy which is of course considered toxic. Look at the books your son has to read in English class. The college application process itself favors girls- cultivating relationships with teachers for recommendations where they divulge all their feelings and dreams, getting involved in all these silly organizations. The system is dominated by women and rigged against boys.

Leadership positions at both k-12 and college level are overwhelmingly male.

"Leadership" at K-12 doesn't even matter. If your kid's school has a male principal, your kid will never even see him. The teachers your kids interact with all day every day are overwhelmingly female. In short, as the PP said, women control K-12 education where it matters - at the pit face - they control the experience from end to end. That female teachers have failed boys is certainly a plausible argument based on the outcome.

My son has done great in public school with almost entirely female teachers. No one’s failed him. Expectations for behavior and academic performance begin at home. So many parents letting their boys play video games and watch YouTube for hours and hours every day and then complaining that the school system is rigged against them. Pathetic.

Your education has failed you if you think muh anecdote means anything. Writ large, the education system has clearly failed boys. And that system is run by women.

Oh yeah, who makes the rules and sets the expectations at home? Also women.

You are fooling yourself. Boys have almost always been educated by women. The system is not failing boys. Rather boys are rejecting education.

Boys are very definitely educated differently now than they were when I was a kid.

And if one accepts the (asinine and false) claim that boys are rejecting education, I guess that means your conclusion is "oh well let's give up on boys then"? One could note that over the past decades, whenever girls are "underrepresented" in any educational area (most notably STEM) there is a huge push to fix this and to encourage girls to study the subject. But when boys fall behind, the reaction from women is shrug, "oh well, what can you do."

Disgusting.

No, exactly opposite. You made a wrong assumption! Perhaps I didn’t string my argument together coherently….we absolutely do need to fix what’s going on with boys, and we need to make adjustments to public education. I suggest we look to private schools as a model bc they’re doing an excellent job educating boys. Public school classrooms are big, noisy and have no rules. We should give them lots of room to goof off and horse around outside of class, but inside the teachers need to hold them accountable, and create an environment where it’s ok to be smart. Someone upthread suggested school is oriented toward females, with the implication being that if we relax the classroom boys will thrive. Earlier I pointed out the classroom environment has been loosened considerably, but boy performance has only gotten worse.

Why are they seemingly not interested? I think for social reasons. Outside of private school environments, there is not social cache to being smart. At my child’s public school the smart boys are almost entirely kids of immigrants! Which is another interesting dynamic

+1

This! Volunteer in any public high school class and you will see that teachers spend 90% of their time on the boys in the class. There is no discipline or expectations. The boys (not all) control the whole classroom environment. The girls (for the most part) sit quietly and do their best to do what they're told. It starts at home. Parents aren't teaching their boys the importance of education and respect. Boys these days play video games and watch porn all day and could care less about anything else.

So, you either have no sons and therefore don’t know anything about which you speak or you have sons that you have parented so horribly that all
they do is play video games or watch porn. Either way, you don’t have a right to generalize about average boys. Because your generalizations couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Could you imagine the outrage if someone said that all girls care about is makeup, eating disorders, and catching a husband? You crazies would be going ballistic because it’s not a fair generalization.

I’m not the PP and I have a boy and I have to say the struggle against gaming addiction for boys is real. It is a frequent topic of conversation among other parents of boys. I found mention of a study that says 19 percent of teen boys may have a gaming disorder (compared to 8 percent of girls). So while not common to all boys, could be a significant enough phenomenon to account for at least some of the difference in educational outcomes.

And girls battle ED’s at a much higher percentage than boys do. Should we boil them down to a group who cares about nothing but their looks and getting thinner?

Of course not, but where eating disorders might possibly correlate to other undesirable outcomes for girls, I would hope we could at least discuss the potential connections. Not sure why you’re so touchy about this. If your boy isn’t consuming massive amounts of video games and/or porn, then that’s great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women control k-12 education and now college. They design the experience and set the expectations. When girls do relatively worse on standardized tests, they de-emphasize standardized tests. Everything about education these days is hostile to masculine energy which is of course considered toxic. Look at the books your son has to read in English class. The college application process itself favors girls- cultivating relationships with teachers for recommendations where they divulge all their feelings and dreams, getting involved in all these silly organizations. The system is dominated by women and rigged against boys.

Leadership positions at both k-12 and college level are overwhelmingly male.

"Leadership" at K-12 doesn't even matter. If your kid's school has a male principal, your kid will never even see him. The teachers your kids interact with all day every day are overwhelmingly female. In short, as the PP said, women control K-12 education where it matters - at the pit face - they control the experience from end to end. That female teachers have failed boys is certainly a plausible argument based on the outcome.

My son has done great in public school with almost entirely female teachers. No one’s failed him. Expectations for behavior and academic performance begin at home. So many parents letting their boys play video games and watch YouTube for hours and hours every day and then complaining that the school system is rigged against them. Pathetic.

Your education has failed you if you think muh anecdote means anything. Writ large, the education system has clearly failed boys. And that system is run by women.

Oh yeah, who makes the rules and sets the expectations at home? Also women.

You are fooling yourself. Boys have almost always been educated by women. The system is not failing boys. Rather boys are rejecting education.

Boys are very definitely educated differently now than they were when I was a kid.

And if one accepts the (asinine and false) claim that boys are rejecting education, I guess that means your conclusion is "oh well let's give up on boys then"? One could note that over the past decades, whenever girls are "underrepresented" in any educational area (most notably STEM) there is a huge push to fix this and to encourage girls to study the subject. But when boys fall behind, the reaction from women is shrug, "oh well, what can you do."

Disgusting.

No, exactly opposite. You made a wrong assumption! Perhaps I didn’t string my argument together coherently….we absolutely do need to fix what’s going on with boys, and we need to make adjustments to public education. I suggest we look to private schools as a model bc they’re doing an excellent job educating boys. Public school classrooms are big, noisy and have no rules. We should give them lots of room to goof off and horse around outside of class, but inside the teachers need to hold them accountable, and create an environment where it’s ok to be smart. Someone upthread suggested school is oriented toward females, with the implication being that if we relax the classroom boys will thrive. Earlier I pointed out the classroom environment has been loosened considerably, but boy performance has only gotten worse.

Why are they seemingly not interested? I think for social reasons. Outside of private school environments, there is not social cache to being smart. At my child’s public school the smart boys are almost entirely kids of immigrants! Which is another interesting dynamic

+1

This! Volunteer in any public high school class and you will see that teachers spend 90% of their time on the boys in the class. There is no discipline or expectations. The boys (not all) control the whole classroom environment. The girls (for the most part) sit quietly and do their best to do what they're told. It starts at home. Parents aren't teaching their boys the importance of education and respect. Boys these days play video games and watch porn all day and could care less about anything else.

So, you either have no sons and therefore don’t know anything about which you speak or you have sons that you have parented so horribly that all
they do is play video games or watch porn. Either way, you don’t have a right to generalize about average boys. Because your generalizations couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Could you imagine the outrage if someone said that all girls care about is makeup, eating disorders, and catching a husband? You crazies would be going ballistic because it’s not a fair generalization.

I’m not the PP and I have a boy and I have to say the struggle against gaming addiction for boys is real. It is a frequent topic of conversation among other parents of boys. I found mention of a study that says 19 percent of teen boys may have a gaming disorder (compared to 8 percent of girls). So while not common to all boys, could be a significant enough phenomenon to account for at least some of the difference in educational outcomes.

And girls battle ED’s at a much higher percentage than boys do. Should we boil them down to a group who cares about nothing but their looks and getting thinner?

Of course not, but where eating disorders might possibly correlate to other undesirable outcomes for girls, I would hope we could at least discuss the potential connections. Not sure why you’re so touchy about this. If your boy isn’t consuming massive amounts of video games and/or porn, then that’s great.

It’s about more than just my kids. It’s about the shift in education of boys, which one of you harpies claimed made no difference because boys only care about video games and porn anyway. Maybe boys are tired of the drama brought into school by hyper-perfectionist girls and their body image/friend issues. Maybe THAT is what teachers are focused on.

This thread started with a butt-hurt poster upset that boys get a little admissions bump at SLACs and in the end someone ended up stating that the education system is correct in ignoring boys due to their video game and porn addictions. All you people
are doing is creating a chasm in young people that will lead to worse political divisions than we already have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is though that high school and middle school favors girls because they go through puberty earlier and that leads to changes in the brain that are advantageous for doing well in school. Boys do catch up eventually, but the current system does make them look like weaker college applicants (esp now that it is so competitive to get into top colleges).

I’m not disagreeing, but when I was in high school boys were just as competitive academically as the girls. There was not this gender imbalance in the classroom. Boys today are particularly disengaged from academics - so I do believe something additional is going on. Chalking it up to simple brain maturity means you’re leaving other explanations on the table.

As school in general has become more drill and kill with lots of worksheets and less fun and creative work and more teaching to the test, it favors girls and boys disengage. As my 7th grade son said in reference to a friend of his who is very smart but constantly forgets to bring the correct materials to class or finish his homework "there are lots of smart boys, but the smart girls are better at school." Their school doesn't allow kids to carry their backpacks around and they only have a couple times a day to go to their lockers, so even that requires a level of organization I didn't have to have in middle school.

My experience has been completely different— teaching methods used to be more “kill & drill” when we were young. Most schools have moved toward project-based assignments, collaboration, and application of knowledge instead of memorization/drills. Teachers are also more accommodating now! Many allow kids to talk quietly, listen to music on headphones, and have a higher tolerance for noise & movement.

So, again, something else is going on. I’m not sure why boys are faltering, but I think it can be fixed.

+1 Schools are bending over backwards to accommodate boys.

How exactly is that happening? I'm not seeing it. Schools are bending over backwards to make learning and especially reading hateful to boys.

How is reading hateful to boys? Didn't they used to teach boys to read but not girls? Aren't most classical authors men? There is no reason boys can't read at the same level as girls. You have to be able to sit and concentrate in order to read. Boys need to learn how to do that.

You obviously don't have a son. If you did, you would know there are books that boys actively like to read - they will do so voluntarily - and books that boys actively hate to read. Women English teachers (a redundant formulation, I know) are seemingly only capable of assigning the latter as class reading. I suspect it's because they are only assigning books they like without any thought for what boys like. Last year DS said his teacher told the class they could choose from among five books to write a report on - she said "you will really like these books!" - and every single one of them was a book designed to appeal only to girls. Talk about completely oblivious.

PP. I don't have a son your age. From my experiences 20 years ago it was the complete opposite. All of the books were about nature, seafaring, war and other masculine stuff. Most assigned reading bored me to tears but I still had good grades. It was great to read anything a bit modern like 1984, which was still male oriented but at least had psychological themes. I can hardly remember a time that we read anything that would tend to appeal to girls other than some scenes Romeo & Juliet. And it was for precisely the reason you stated: boys will only voluntarily read boy stuff but girls will tolerate boy stuff, so we, girls, had to read stuff like Call of the Wild. However, we survived and did our assignments.

That was back when boys were doing roughly as well as girls in school. Sure that's making the point you think it is? Sounds like we need to go back to that era to me.

If the boys can't adjust to even reading something that's not their favorite type of book, why should they be doing as well in school? What if they decide history, science, and math are boring too? Do they just get to play action figures then?

I’m sorry but parsing the emotions of some woman of color after she was allegedly raped just isn’t that interesting

Weren't you going to share your son's reading list?

I forgot the names and he is out with his bros but one had to do with some indigenous girl on a reservation. 3/6 books revolves around a rape. They were almost all written by female POCs. The one interesting book was Gatsby and teacher apologized for including it at open school night but said it was “actually a good book.”

With all of the stuff going on with school libraries and sex, I'm awfully surprised that parents haven't complained about all these rape books...

My daughter was also subjected to a lot of books that included rape scenes. These were authored by male POC. Some BIPOC parents asked the school for more upbeat books since they thought it was depressing. The kids prefers Gatsby.

Any of these books on the list?

https://jocolibrary.bibliocommons.com/list/share/186066773/1069795477

I have a son in a MD public school and he has never read any books on rape, sexual/ gender identity, etc.

Really? My son is in a DC public middle school and he’s definitely been assigned books like this for classroom discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women control k-12 education and now college. They design the experience and set the expectations. When girls do relatively worse on standardized tests, they de-emphasize standardized tests. Everything about education these days is hostile to masculine energy which is of course considered toxic. Look at the books your son has to read in English class. The college application process itself favors girls- cultivating relationships with teachers for recommendations where they divulge all their feelings and dreams, getting involved in all these silly organizations. The system is dominated by women and rigged against boys.

Leadership positions at both k-12 and college level are overwhelmingly male.

"Leadership" at K-12 doesn't even matter. If your kid's school has a male principal, your kid will never even see him. The teachers your kids interact with all day every day are overwhelmingly female. In short, as the PP said, women control K-12 education where it matters - at the pit face - they control the experience from end to end. That female teachers have failed boys is certainly a plausible argument based on the outcome.

My son has done great in public school with almost entirely female teachers. No one’s failed him. Expectations for behavior and academic performance begin at home. So many parents letting their boys play video games and watch YouTube for hours and hours every day and then complaining that the school system is rigged against them. Pathetic.

Your education has failed you if you think muh anecdote means anything. Writ large, the education system has clearly failed boys. And that system is run by women.

Oh yeah, who makes the rules and sets the expectations at home? Also women.

You are fooling yourself. Boys have almost always been educated by women. The system is not failing boys. Rather boys are rejecting education.

Boys are very definitely educated differently now than they were when I was a kid.

And if one accepts the (asinine and false) claim that boys are rejecting education, I guess that means your conclusion is "oh well let's give up on boys then"? One could note that over the past decades, whenever girls are "underrepresented" in any educational area (most notably STEM) there is a huge push to fix this and to encourage girls to study the subject. But when boys fall behind, the reaction from women is shrug, "oh well, what can you do."

Disgusting.

No, exactly opposite. You made a wrong assumption! Perhaps I didn’t string my argument together coherently….we absolutely do need to fix what’s going on with boys, and we need to make adjustments to public education. I suggest we look to private schools as a model bc they’re doing an excellent job educating boys. Public school classrooms are big, noisy and have no rules. We should give them lots of room to goof off and horse around outside of class, but inside the teachers need to hold them accountable, and create an environment where it’s ok to be smart. Someone upthread suggested school is oriented toward females, with the implication being that if we relax the classroom boys will thrive. Earlier I pointed out the classroom environment has been loosened considerably, but boy performance has only gotten worse.

Why are they seemingly not interested? I think for social reasons. Outside of private school environments, there is not social cache to being smart. At my child’s public school the smart boys are almost entirely kids of immigrants! Which is another interesting dynamic

+1

This! Volunteer in any public high school class and you will see that teachers spend 90% of their time on the boys in the class. There is no discipline or expectations. The boys (not all) control the whole classroom environment. The girls (for the most part) sit quietly and do their best to do what they're told. It starts at home. Parents aren't teaching their boys the importance of education and respect. Boys these days play video games and watch porn all day and could care less about anything else.

So, you either have no sons and therefore don’t know anything about which you speak or you have sons that you have parented so horribly that all
they do is play video games or watch porn. Either way, you don’t have a right to generalize about average boys. Because your generalizations couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Could you imagine the outrage if someone said that all girls care about is makeup, eating disorders, and catching a husband? You crazies would be going ballistic because it’s not a fair generalization.

I’m not the PP and I have a boy and I have to say the struggle against gaming addiction for boys is real. It is a frequent topic of conversation among other parents of boys. I found mention of a study that says 19 percent of teen boys may have a gaming disorder (compared to 8 percent of girls). So while not common to all boys, could be a significant enough phenomenon to account for at least some of the difference in educational outcomes.

And girls battle ED’s at a much higher percentage than boys do. Should we boil them down to a group who cares about nothing but their looks and getting thinner?

Of course not, but where eating disorders might possibly correlate to other undesirable outcomes for girls, I would hope we could at least discuss the potential connections. Not sure why you’re so touchy about this. If your boy isn’t consuming massive amounts of video games and/or porn, then that’s great.

It’s about more than just my kids. It’s about the shift in education of boys, which one of you harpies claimed made no difference because boys only care about video games and porn anyway. Maybe boys are tired of the drama brought into school by hyper-perfectionist girls and their body image/friend issues. Maybe THAT is what teachers are focused on.

This thread started with a butt-hurt poster upset that boys get a little admissions bump at SLACs and in the end someone ended up stating that the education system is correct in ignoring boys due to their video game and porn addictions. All you people
are doing is creating a chasm in young people that will lead to worse political divisions than we already have.

Look, go ahead and give them more wiggle time. Let them start a year later. Offer more no-rape novels in English class. And then get back to me and let me know if it’s made a lick of difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is though that high school and middle school favors girls because they go through puberty earlier and that leads to changes in the brain that are advantageous for doing well in school. Boys do catch up eventually, but the current system does make them look like weaker college applicants (esp now that it is so competitive to get into top colleges).

I’m not disagreeing, but when I was in high school boys were just as competitive academically as the girls. There was not this gender imbalance in the classroom. Boys today are particularly disengaged from academics - so I do believe something additional is going on. Chalking it up to simple brain maturity means you’re leaving other explanations on the table.

As school in general has become more drill and kill with lots of worksheets and less fun and creative work and more teaching to the test, it favors girls and boys disengage. As my 7th grade son said in reference to a friend of his who is very smart but constantly forgets to bring the correct materials to class or finish his homework "there are lots of smart boys, but the smart girls are better at school." Their school doesn't allow kids to carry their backpacks around and they only have a couple times a day to go to their lockers, so even that requires a level of organization I didn't have to have in middle school.

My experience has been completely different— teaching methods used to be more “kill & drill” when we were young. Most schools have moved toward project-based assignments, collaboration, and application of knowledge instead of memorization/drills. Teachers are also more accommodating now! Many allow kids to talk quietly, listen to music on headphones, and have a higher tolerance for noise & movement.

So, again, something else is going on. I’m not sure why boys are faltering, but I think it can be fixed.

+1 Schools are bending over backwards to accommodate boys.

How exactly is that happening? I'm not seeing it. Schools are bending over backwards to make learning and especially reading hateful to boys.

How is reading hateful to boys? Didn't they used to teach boys to read but not girls? Aren't most classical authors men? There is no reason boys can't read at the same level as girls. You have to be able to sit and concentrate in order to read. Boys need to learn how to do that.

You obviously don't have a son. If you did, you would know there are books that boys actively like to read - they will do so voluntarily - and books that boys actively hate to read. Women English teachers (a redundant formulation, I know) are seemingly only capable of assigning the latter as class reading. I suspect it's because they are only assigning books they like without any thought for what boys like. Last year DS said his teacher told the class they could choose from among five books to write a report on - she said "you will really like these books!" - and every single one of them was a book designed to appeal only to girls. Talk about completely oblivious.

PP. I don't have a son your age. From my experiences 20 years ago it was the complete opposite. All of the books were about nature, seafaring, war and other masculine stuff. Most assigned reading bored me to tears but I still had good grades. It was great to read anything a bit modern like 1984, which was still male oriented but at least had psychological themes. I can hardly remember a time that we read anything that would tend to appeal to girls other than some scenes Romeo & Juliet. And it was for precisely the reason you stated: boys will only voluntarily read boy stuff but girls will tolerate boy stuff, so we, girls, had to read stuff like Call of the Wild. However, we survived and did our assignments.

That was back when boys were doing roughly as well as girls in school. Sure that's making the point you think it is? Sounds like we need to go back to that era to me.

If the boys can't adjust to even reading something that's not their favorite type of book, why should they be doing as well in school? What if they decide history, science, and math are boring too? Do they just get to play action figures then?

I’m sorry but parsing the emotions of some woman of color after she was allegedly raped just isn’t that interesting

Weren't you going to share your son's reading list?

I forgot the names and he is out with his bros but one had to do with some indigenous girl on a reservation. 3/6 books revolves around a rape. They were almost all written by female POCs. The one interesting book was Gatsby and teacher apologized for including it at open school night but said it was “actually a good book.”

With all of the stuff going on with school libraries and sex, I'm awfully surprised that parents haven't complained about all these rape books...

My daughter was also subjected to a lot of books that included rape scenes. These were authored by male POC. Some BIPOC parents asked the school for more upbeat books since they thought it was depressing. The kids prefers Gatsby.

Any of these books on the list?

https://jocolibrary.bibliocommons.com/list/share/186066773/1069795477

I have a son in a MD public school and he has never read any books on rape, sexual/ gender identity, etc.

Really? My son is in a DC public middle school and he’s definitely been assigned books like this for classroom discussion.

DD in MD public high school so far has had to read Lord of the Flies, Unbroken and Kite Runner all books that I thought were good, but also feel as though they were selected just to try to reach the boys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know many schools have higher male than female acceptance rates, but for the top STEM-focused schools, it's the opposite by nearly 2 to 1.

https://ir.mit.edu/cds-2023

+1 I mentioned up thread that for majors like CS and engineering, it's male dominated. Girls get a bump. When we toured Caltech and CMU, we were told that they do try to keep the gender balanced as much as they can but you can see the demographics still skews more male, especially for CS/Eng.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is though that high school and middle school favors girls because they go through puberty earlier and that leads to changes in the brain that are advantageous for doing well in school. Boys do catch up eventually, but the current system does make them look like weaker college applicants (esp now that it is so competitive to get into top colleges).

I’m not disagreeing, but when I was in high school boys were just as competitive academically as the girls. There was not this gender imbalance in the classroom. Boys today are particularly disengaged from academics - so I do believe something additional is going on. Chalking it up to simple brain maturity means you’re leaving other explanations on the table.

As school in general has become more drill and kill with lots of worksheets and less fun and creative work and more teaching to the test, it favors girls and boys disengage. As my 7th grade son said in reference to a friend of his who is very smart but constantly forgets to bring the correct materials to class or finish his homework "there are lots of smart boys, but the smart girls are better at school." Their school doesn't allow kids to carry their backpacks around and they only have a couple times a day to go to their lockers, so even that requires a level of organization I didn't have to have in middle school.

My experience has been completely different— teaching methods used to be more “kill & drill” when we were young. Most schools have moved toward project-based assignments, collaboration, and application of knowledge instead of memorization/drills. Teachers are also more accommodating now! Many allow kids to talk quietly, listen to music on headphones, and have a higher tolerance for noise & movement.

So, again, something else is going on. I’m not sure why boys are faltering, but I think it can be fixed.

+1 Schools are bending over backwards to accommodate boys.

How exactly is that happening? I'm not seeing it. Schools are bending over backwards to make learning and especially reading hateful to boys.

How is reading hateful to boys? Didn't they used to teach boys to read but not girls? Aren't most classical authors men? There is no reason boys can't read at the same level as girls. You have to be able to sit and concentrate in order to read. Boys need to learn how to do that.

You obviously don't have a son. If you did, you would know there are books that boys actively like to read - they will do so voluntarily - and books that boys actively hate to read. Women English teachers (a redundant formulation, I know) are seemingly only capable of assigning the latter as class reading. I suspect it's because they are only assigning books they like without any thought for what boys like. Last year DS said his teacher told the class they could choose from among five books to write a report on - she said "you will really like these books!" - and every single one of them was a book designed to appeal only to girls. Talk about completely oblivious.

PP. I don't have a son your age. From my experiences 20 years ago it was the complete opposite. All of the books were about nature, seafaring, war and other masculine stuff. Most assigned reading bored me to tears but I still had good grades. It was great to read anything a bit modern like 1984, which was still male oriented but at least had psychological themes. I can hardly remember a time that we read anything that would tend to appeal to girls other than some scenes Romeo & Juliet. And it was for precisely the reason you stated: boys will only voluntarily read boy stuff but girls will tolerate boy stuff, so we, girls, had to read stuff like Call of the Wild. However, we survived and did our assignments.

That was back when boys were doing roughly as well as girls in school. Sure that's making the point you think it is? Sounds like we need to go back to that era to me.

If the boys can't adjust to even reading something that's not their favorite type of book, why should they be doing as well in school? What if they decide history, science, and math are boring too? Do they just get to play action figures then?

I’m sorry but parsing the emotions of some woman of color after she was allegedly raped just isn’t that interesting

Weren't you going to share your son's reading list?

I forgot the names and he is out with his bros but one had to do with some indigenous girl on a reservation. 3/6 books revolves around a rape. They were almost all written by female POCs. The one interesting book was Gatsby and teacher apologized for including it at open school night but said it was “actually a good book.”

With all of the stuff going on with school libraries and sex, I'm awfully surprised that parents haven't complained about all these rape books...

My daughter was also subjected to a lot of books that included rape scenes. These were authored by male POC. Some BIPOC parents asked the school for more upbeat books since they thought it was depressing. The kids prefers Gatsby.

Any of these books on the list?

https://jocolibrary.bibliocommons.com/list/share/186066773/1069795477

I have a son in a MD public school and he has never read any books on rape, sexual/ gender identity, etc.

Really? My son is in a DC public middle school and he’s definitely been assigned books like this for classroom
discussion.

I think people are missing the forest through the trees. If I asked my kid whether he would like to read The Great Gatsby or one of these YA books his answer would be…what are the other options. I don’t know why everyone keeps referencing The Great Gatsby…i slogged through it but I wouldn’t ever read it for fun (not that others wouldn’t).

Maybe kids can just read books they want to read. Teacher would have to review it and make sure it passes the sniff test…but maybe the boys want to read a great sports book, or war book, or [Insert topic here].

I guarantee if you asked my kid their choice is one of these books or Shakespeare…he will pick one of these books.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know many schools have higher male than female acceptance rates, but for the top STEM-focused schools, it's the opposite by nearly 2 to 1.

https://ir.mit.edu/cds-2023

+1 I mentioned up thread that for majors like CS and engineering, it's male dominated. Girls get a bump. When we toured Caltech and CMU, we were told that they do try to keep the gender balanced as much as they can but you can see the demographics still skews more male, especially for CS/Eng.

Also at Harvey-Mudd, where the admit rate for women is 230% that of men.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is though that high school and middle school favors girls because they go through puberty earlier and that leads to changes in the brain that are advantageous for doing well in school. Boys do catch up eventually, but the current system does make them look like weaker college applicants (esp now that it is so competitive to get into top colleges).

I’m not disagreeing, but when I was in high school boys were just as competitive academically as the girls. There was not this gender imbalance in the classroom. Boys today are particularly disengaged from academics - so I do believe something additional is going on. Chalking it up to simple brain maturity means you’re leaving other explanations on the table.

As school in general has become more drill and kill with lots of worksheets and less fun and creative work and more teaching to the test, it favors girls and boys disengage. As my 7th grade son said in reference to a friend of his who is very smart but constantly forgets to bring the correct materials to class or finish his homework "there are lots of smart boys, but the smart girls are better at school." Their school doesn't allow kids to carry their backpacks around and they only have a couple times a day to go to their lockers, so even that requires a level of organization I didn't have to have in middle school.

My experience has been completely different— teaching methods used to be more “kill & drill” when we were young. Most schools have moved toward project-based assignments, collaboration, and application of knowledge instead of memorization/drills. Teachers are also more accommodating now! Many allow kids to talk quietly, listen to music on headphones, and have a higher tolerance for noise & movement.

So, again, something else is going on. I’m not sure why boys are faltering, but I think it can be fixed.

+1 Schools are bending over backwards to accommodate boys.

:roll: How exactly is that happening? I'm not seeing it. Schools are bending over backwards to make learning and especially reading hateful to boys.

How is reading hateful to boys? Didn't they used to teach boys to read but not girls? Aren't most classical authors men? There is no reason boys can't read at the same level as girls. You have to be able to sit and concentrate in order to read. Boys need to learn how to do that.

You obviously don't have a son. If you did, you would know there are books that boys actively like to read - they will do so voluntarily - and books that boys actively hate to read. Women English teachers (a redundant formulation, I know) are seemingly only capable of assigning the latter as class reading. I suspect it's because they are only assigning books they like without any thought for what boys like. Last year DS said his teacher told the class they could choose from among five books to write a report on - she said "you will really like these books!" - and every single one of them was a book designed to appeal only to girls. Talk about completely oblivious.

PP. I don't have a son your age. From my experiences 20 years ago it was the complete opposite. All of the books were about nature, seafaring, war and other masculine stuff. Most assigned reading bored me to tears but I still had good grades. It was great to read anything a bit modern like 1984, which was still male oriented but at least had psychological themes. I can hardly remember a time that we read anything that would tend to appeal to girls other than some scenes Romeo & Juliet. And it was for precisely the reason you stated: boys will only voluntarily read boy stuff but girls will tolerate boy stuff, so we, girls, had to read stuff like Call of the Wild. However, we survived and did our assignments.

That was back when boys were doing roughly as well as girls in school. Sure that's making the point you think it is? Sounds like we need to go back to that era to me.

If the boys can't adjust to even reading something that's not their favorite type of book, why should they be doing as well in school? What if they decide history, science, and math are boring too? Do they just get to play action figures then?

I’m sorry but parsing the emotions of some woman of color after she was allegedly raped just isn’t that interesting

Weren't you going to share your son's reading list?

I forgot the names and he is out with his bros but one had to do with some indigenous girl on a reservation. 3/6 books revolves around a rape. They were almost all written by female POCs. The one interesting book was Gatsby and teacher apologized for including it at open school night but said it was “actually a good book.”

With all of the stuff going on with school libraries and sex, I'm awfully surprised that parents haven't complained about all these rape books... :roll:

My daughter was also subjected to a lot of books that included rape scenes. These were authored by male POC. Some BIPOC parents asked the school for more upbeat books since they thought it was depressing. The kids prefers Gatsby.

Any of these books on the list?

https://jocolibrary.bibliocommons.com/list/share/186066773/1069795477

I have a son in a MD public school and he has never read any books on rape, sexual/ gender identity, etc.

Really? My son is in a DC public middle school and he’s definitely been assigned books like this for classroom
discussion.

I think people are missing the forest through the trees. If I asked my kid whether he would like to read The Great Gatsby or one of these YA books his answer would be…what are the other options. I don’t know why everyone keeps referencing The Great Gatsby…i slogged through it but I wouldn’t ever read it for fun (not that others wouldn’t).

Maybe kids can just read books they want to read. Teacher would have to review it and make sure it passes the sniff test…but maybe the boys want to read a great sports book, or war book, or [Insert topic here].

I guarantee if you asked my kid their choice is one of these books or Shakespeare…he will pick one of these books.

Because the characters in Gatsby are cool. They are daring and ambitious, take risks. Maybe a little coo-coo. Not just annoying victims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is though that high school and middle school favors girls because they go through puberty earlier and that leads to changes in the brain that are advantageous for doing well in school. Boys do catch up eventually, but the current system does make them look like weaker college applicants (esp now that it is so competitive to get into top colleges).

I’m not disagreeing, but when I was in high school boys were just as competitive academically as the girls. There was not this gender imbalance in the classroom. Boys today are particularly disengaged from academics - so I do believe something additional is going on. Chalking it up to simple brain maturity means you’re leaving other explanations on the table.

As school in general has become more drill and kill with lots of worksheets and less fun and creative work and more teaching to the test, it favors girls and boys disengage. As my 7th grade son said in reference to a friend of his who is very smart but constantly forgets to bring the correct materials to class or finish his homework "there are lots of smart boys, but the smart girls are better at school." Their school doesn't allow kids to carry their backpacks around and they only have a couple times a day to go to their lockers, so even that requires a level of organization I didn't have to have in middle school.

My experience has been completely different— teaching methods used to be more “kill & drill” when we were young. Most schools have moved toward project-based assignments, collaboration, and application of knowledge instead of memorization/drills. Teachers are also more accommodating now! Many allow kids to talk quietly, listen to music on headphones, and have a higher tolerance for noise & movement.

So, again, something else is going on. I’m not sure why boys are faltering, but I think it can be fixed.

+1 Schools are bending over backwards to accommodate boys.

:roll: How exactly is that happening? I'm not seeing it. Schools are bending over backwards to make learning and especially reading hateful to boys.

How is reading hateful to boys? Didn't they used to teach boys to read but not girls? Aren't most classical authors men? There is no reason boys can't read at the same level as girls. You have to be able to sit and concentrate in order to read. Boys need to learn how to do that.

You obviously don't have a son. If you did, you would know there are books that boys actively like to read - they will do so voluntarily - and books that boys actively hate to read. Women English teachers (a redundant formulation, I know) are seemingly only capable of assigning the latter as class reading. I suspect it's because they are only assigning books they like without any thought for what boys like. Last year DS said his teacher told the class they could choose from among five books to write a report on - she said "you will really like these books!" - and every single one of them was a book designed to appeal only to girls. Talk about completely oblivious.

PP. I don't have a son your age. From my experiences 20 years ago it was the complete opposite. All of the books were about nature, seafaring, war and other masculine stuff. Most assigned reading bored me to tears but I still had good grades. It was great to read anything a bit modern like 1984, which was still male oriented but at least had psychological themes. I can hardly remember a time that we read anything that would tend to appeal to girls other than some scenes Romeo & Juliet. And it was for precisely the reason you stated: boys will only voluntarily read boy stuff but girls will tolerate boy stuff, so we, girls, had to read stuff like Call of the Wild. However, we survived and did our assignments.

That was back when boys were doing roughly as well as girls in school. Sure that's making the point you think it is? Sounds like we need to go back to that era to me.

If the boys can't adjust to even reading something that's not their favorite type of book, why should they be doing as well in school? What if they decide history, science, and math are boring too? Do they just get to play action figures then?

I’m sorry but parsing the emotions of some woman of color after she was allegedly raped just isn’t that interesting

Weren't you going to share your son's reading list?

I forgot the names and he is out with his bros but one had to do with some indigenous girl on a reservation. 3/6 books revolves around a rape. They were almost all written by female POCs. The one interesting book was Gatsby and teacher apologized for including it at open school night but said it was “actually a good book.”

With all of the stuff going on with school libraries and sex, I'm awfully surprised that parents haven't complained about all these rape books... :roll:

My daughter was also subjected to a lot of books that included rape scenes. These were authored by male POC. Some BIPOC parents asked the school for more upbeat books since they thought it was depressing. The kids prefers Gatsby.

Any of these books on the list?

https://jocolibrary.bibliocommons.com/list/share/186066773/1069795477

I have a son in a MD public school and he has never read any books on rape, sexual/ gender identity, etc.

Really? My son is in a DC public middle school and he’s definitely been assigned books like this for classroom
discussion.

I think people are missing the forest through the trees. If I asked my kid whether he would like to read The Great Gatsby or one of these YA books his answer would be…what are the other options. I don’t know why everyone keeps referencing The Great Gatsby…i slogged through it but I wouldn’t ever read it for fun (not that others wouldn’t).

Maybe kids can just read books they want to read. Teacher would have to review it and make sure it passes the sniff test…but maybe the boys want to read a great sports book, or war book, or [Insert topic here].

I guarantee if you asked my kid their choice is one of these books or Shakespeare…he will pick one of these books.

Because the characters in Gatsby are cool. They are daring and ambitious, take risks. Maybe a little coo-coo. Not just annoying victims

Thanks…you get that from the movie or the Cliff Notes (yeah, I know those aren’t a thing anymore).

It is a tedious read that people throw around to show they are literate.

There are plenty of great novels. Not sure why this one was plucked out as an example of what anyone wants to read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is though that high school and middle school favors girls because they go through puberty earlier and that leads to changes in the brain that are advantageous for doing well in school. Boys do catch up eventually, but the current system does make them look like weaker college applicants (esp now that it is so competitive to get into top colleges).

I’m not disagreeing, but when I was in high school boys were just as competitive academically as the girls. There was not this gender imbalance in the classroom. Boys today are particularly disengaged from academics - so I do believe something additional is going on. Chalking it up to simple brain maturity means you’re leaving other explanations on the table.

As school in general has become more drill and kill with lots of worksheets and less fun and creative work and more teaching to the test, it favors girls and boys disengage. As my 7th grade son said in reference to a friend of his who is very smart but constantly forgets to bring the correct materials to class or finish his homework "there are lots of smart boys, but the smart girls are better at school." Their school doesn't allow kids to carry their backpacks around and they only have a couple times a day to go to their lockers, so even that requires a level of organization I didn't have to have in middle school.

My experience has been completely different— teaching methods used to be more “kill & drill” when we were young. Most schools have moved toward project-based assignments, collaboration, and application of knowledge instead of memorization/drills. Teachers are also more accommodating now! Many allow kids to talk quietly, listen to music on headphones, and have a higher tolerance for noise & movement.

So, again, something else is going on. I’m not sure why boys are faltering, but I think it can be fixed.

+1 Schools are bending over backwards to accommodate boys.

:roll: How exactly is that happening? I'm not seeing it. Schools are bending over backwards to make learning and especially reading hateful to boys.

How is reading hateful to boys? Didn't they used to teach boys to read but not girls? Aren't most classical authors men? There is no reason boys can't read at the same level as girls. You have to be able to sit and concentrate in order to read. Boys need to learn how to do that.

You obviously don't have a son. If you did, you would know there are books that boys actively like to read - they will do so voluntarily - and books that boys actively hate to read. Women English teachers (a redundant formulation, I know) are seemingly only capable of assigning the latter as class reading. I suspect it's because they are only assigning books they like without any thought for what boys like. Last year DS said his teacher told the class they could choose from among five books to write a report on - she said "you will really like these books!" - and every single one of them was a book designed to appeal only to girls. Talk about completely oblivious.

PP. I don't have a son your age. From my experiences 20 years ago it was the complete opposite. All of the books were about nature, seafaring, war and other masculine stuff. Most assigned reading bored me to tears but I still had good grades. It was great to read anything a bit modern like 1984, which was still male oriented but at least had psychological themes. I can hardly remember a time that we read anything that would tend to appeal to girls other than some scenes Romeo & Juliet. And it was for precisely the reason you stated: boys will only voluntarily read boy stuff but girls will tolerate boy stuff, so we, girls, had to read stuff like Call of the Wild. However, we survived and did our assignments.

That was back when boys were doing roughly as well as girls in school. Sure that's making the point you think it is? Sounds like we need to go back to that era to me.

If the boys can't adjust to even reading something that's not their favorite type of book, why should they be doing as well in school? What if they decide history, science, and math are boring too? Do they just get to play action figures then?

I’m sorry but parsing the emotions of some woman of color after she was allegedly raped just isn’t that interesting

Weren't you going to share your son's reading list?

I forgot the names and he is out with his bros but one had to do with some indigenous girl on a reservation. 3/6 books revolves around a rape. They were almost all written by female POCs. The one interesting book was Gatsby and teacher apologized for including it at open school night but said it was “actually a good book.”

With all of the stuff going on with school libraries and sex, I'm awfully surprised that parents haven't complained about all these rape books... :roll:

My daughter was also subjected to a lot of books that included rape scenes. These were authored by male POC. Some BIPOC parents asked the school for more upbeat books since they thought it was depressing. The kids prefers Gatsby.

Any of these books on the list?

https://jocolibrary.bibliocommons.com/list/share/186066773/1069795477

I have a son in a MD public school and he has never read any books on rape, sexual/ gender identity, etc.

Really? My son is in a DC public middle school and he’s definitely been assigned books like this for classroom
discussion.

I think people are missing the forest through the trees. If I asked my kid whether he would like to read The Great Gatsby or one of these YA books his answer would be…what are the other options. I don’t know why everyone keeps referencing The Great Gatsby…i slogged through it but I wouldn’t ever read it for fun (not that others wouldn’t).

Maybe kids can just read books they want to read. Teacher would have to review it and make sure it passes the sniff test…but maybe the boys want to read a great sports book, or war book, or [Insert topic here].

I guarantee if you asked my kid their choice is one of these books or Shakespeare…he will pick one of these books.

Because the characters in Gatsby are cool. They are daring and ambitious, take risks. Maybe a little coo-coo. Not just annoying victims

Thanks…you get that from the movie or the Cliff Notes (yeah, I know those aren’t a thing anymore).

It is a tedious read that people throw around to show they are literate.

There are plenty of great novels. Not sure why this one was plucked out as an example of what anyone wants to read.

Look, I’m personally fond of The Beautiful and the Damned but I know the only novel DS enjoyed last year was Gatsby. 1920s excess is pretty fun. The other books, all with various oppressed peoples moaning and groaning, didn’t float his boat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is though that high school and middle school favors girls because they go through puberty earlier and that leads to changes in the brain that are advantageous for doing well in school. Boys do catch up eventually, but the current system does make them look like weaker college applicants (esp now that it is so competitive to get into top colleges).

I’m not disagreeing, but when I was in high school boys were just as competitive academically as the girls. There was not this gender imbalance in the classroom. Boys today are particularly disengaged from academics - so I do believe something additional is going on. Chalking it up to simple brain maturity means you’re leaving other explanations on the table.

As school in general has become more drill and kill with lots of worksheets and less fun and creative work and more teaching to the test, it favors girls and boys disengage. As my 7th grade son said in reference to a friend of his who is very smart but constantly forgets to bring the correct materials to class or finish his homework "there are lots of smart boys, but the smart girls are better at school." Their school doesn't allow kids to carry their backpacks around and they only have a couple times a day to go to their lockers, so even that requires a level of organization I didn't have to have in middle school.

My experience has been completely different— teaching methods used to be more “kill & drill” when we were young. Most schools have moved toward project-based assignments, collaboration, and application of knowledge instead of memorization/drills. Teachers are also more accommodating now! Many allow kids to talk quietly, listen to music on headphones, and have a higher tolerance for noise & movement.

So, again, something else is going on. I’m not sure why boys are faltering, but I think it can be fixed.

+1 Schools are bending over backwards to accommodate boys.

:roll: How exactly is that happening? I'm not seeing it. Schools are bending over backwards to make learning and especially reading hateful to boys.

How is reading hateful to boys? Didn't they used to teach boys to read but not girls? Aren't most classical authors men? There is no reason boys can't read at the same level as girls. You have to be able to sit and concentrate in order to read. Boys need to learn how to do that.

You obviously don't have a son. If you did, you would know there are books that boys actively like to read - they will do so voluntarily - and books that boys actively hate to read. Women English teachers (a redundant formulation, I know) are seemingly only capable of assigning the latter as class reading. I suspect it's because they are only assigning books they like without any thought for what boys like. Last year DS said his teacher told the class they could choose from among five books to write a report on - she said "you will really like these books!" - and every single one of them was a book designed to appeal only to girls. Talk about completely oblivious.

PP. I don't have a son your age. From my experiences 20 years ago it was the complete opposite. All of the books were about nature, seafaring, war and other masculine stuff. Most assigned reading bored me to tears but I still had good grades. It was great to read anything a bit modern like 1984, which was still male oriented but at least had psychological themes. I can hardly remember a time that we read anything that would tend to appeal to girls other than some scenes Romeo & Juliet. And it was for precisely the reason you stated: boys will only voluntarily read boy stuff but girls will tolerate boy stuff, so we, girls, had to read stuff like Call of the Wild. However, we survived and did our assignments.

That was back when boys were doing roughly as well as girls in school. Sure that's making the point you think it is? Sounds like we need to go back to that era to me.

If the boys can't adjust to even reading something that's not their favorite type of book, why should they be doing as well in school? What if they decide history, science, and math are boring too? Do they just get to play action figures then?

I’m sorry but parsing the emotions of some woman of color after she was allegedly raped just isn’t that interesting

Weren't you going to share your son's reading list?

I forgot the names and he is out with his bros but one had to do with some indigenous girl on a reservation. 3/6 books revolves around a rape. They were almost all written by female POCs. The one interesting book was Gatsby and teacher apologized for including it at open school night but said it was “actually a good book.”

With all of the stuff going on with school libraries and sex, I'm awfully surprised that parents haven't complained about all these rape books... :roll:

My daughter was also subjected to a lot of books that included rape scenes. These were authored by male POC. Some BIPOC parents asked the school for more upbeat books since they thought it was depressing. The kids prefers Gatsby.

Any of these books on the list?

https://jocolibrary.bibliocommons.com/list/share/186066773/1069795477

I have a son in a MD public school and he has never read any books on rape, sexual/ gender identity, etc.

Really? My son is in a DC public middle school and he’s definitely been assigned books like this for classroom
discussion.

I think people are missing the forest through the trees. If I asked my kid whether he would like to read The Great Gatsby or one of these YA books his answer would be…what are the other options. I don’t know why everyone keeps referencing The Great Gatsby…i slogged through it but I wouldn’t ever read it for fun (not that others wouldn’t).

Maybe kids can just read books they want to read. Teacher would have to review it and make sure it passes the sniff test…but maybe the boys want to read a great sports book, or war book, or [Insert topic here].

I guarantee if you asked my kid their choice is one of these books or Shakespeare…he will pick one of these books.

Because the characters in Gatsby are cool. They are daring and ambitious, take risks. Maybe a little coo-coo. Not just annoying victims

Thanks…you get that from the movie or the Cliff Notes (yeah, I know those aren’t a thing anymore).

It is a tedious read that people throw around to show they are literate.

There are plenty of great novels. Not sure why this one was plucked out as an example of what anyone wants to read.

DP. My kid read it in 9th grade and said it was most people’s favorite book they had to read that year.

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Anonymous wrote:Women control k-12 education and now college. They design the experience and set the expectations. When girls do relatively worse on standardized tests, they de-emphasize standardized tests. Everything about education these days is hostile to masculine energy which is of course considered toxic. Look at the books your son has to read in English class. The college application process itself favors girls- cultivating relationships with teachers for recommendations where they divulge all their feelings and dreams, getting involved in all these silly organizations. The system is dominated by women and rigged against boys.

Leadership positions at both k-12 and college level are overwhelmingly male.

"Leadership" at K-12 doesn't even matter. If your kid's school has a male principal, your kid will never even see him. The teachers your kids interact with all day every day are overwhelmingly female. In short, as the PP said, women control K-12 education where it matters - at the pit face - they control the experience from end to end. That female teachers have failed boys is certainly a plausible argument based on the outcome.

My son has done great in public school with almost entirely female teachers. No one’s failed him. Expectations for behavior and academic performance begin at home. So many parents letting their boys play video games and watch YouTube for hours and hours every day and then complaining that the school system is rigged against them. Pathetic.

Your education has failed you if you think muh anecdote means anything. Writ large, the education system has clearly failed boys. And that system is run by women.

Oh yeah, who makes the rules and sets the expectations at home? Also women.

You are fooling yourself. Boys have almost always been educated by women. The system is not failing boys. Rather boys are rejecting education.

Boys are very definitely educated differently now than they were when I was a kid.

And if one accepts the (asinine and false) claim that boys are rejecting education, I guess that means your conclusion is "oh well let's give up on boys then"? One could note that over the past decades, whenever girls are "underrepresented" in any educational area (most notably STEM) there is a huge push to fix this and to encourage girls to study the subject. But when boys fall behind, the reaction from women is shrug, "oh well, what can you do."

Disgusting.

No, exactly opposite. You made a wrong assumption! Perhaps I didn’t string my argument together coherently….we absolutely do need to fix what’s going on with boys, and we need to make adjustments to public education. I suggest we look to private schools as a model bc they’re doing an excellent job educating boys. Public school classrooms are big, noisy and have no rules. We should give them lots of room to goof off and horse around outside of class, but inside the teachers need to hold them accountable, and create an environment where it’s ok to be smart. Someone upthread suggested school is oriented toward females, with the implication being that if we relax the classroom boys will thrive. Earlier I pointed out the classroom environment has been loosened considerably, but boy performance has only gotten worse.

Why are they seemingly not interested? I think for social reasons. Outside of private school environments, there is not social cache to being smart. At my child’s public school the smart boys are almost entirely kids of immigrants! Which is another interesting dynamic

+1

This! Volunteer in any public high school class and you will see that teachers spend 90% of their time on the boys in the class. There is no discipline or expectations. The boys (not all) control the whole classroom environment. The girls (for the most part) sit quietly and do their best to do what they're told. It starts at home. Parents aren't teaching their boys the importance of education and respect. Boys these days play video games and watch porn all day and could care less about anything else.

So, you either have no sons and therefore don’t know anything about which you speak or you have sons that you have parented so horribly that all
they do is play video games or watch porn. Either way, you don’t have a right to generalize about average boys. Because your generalizations couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Could you imagine the outrage if someone said that all girls care about is makeup, eating disorders, and catching a husband? You crazies would be going ballistic because it’s not a fair generalization.

I’m not the PP and I have a boy and I have to say the struggle against gaming addiction for boys is real. It is a frequent topic of conversation among other parents of boys. I found mention of a study that says 19 percent of teen boys may have a gaming disorder (compared to 8 percent of girls). So while not common to all boys, could be a significant enough phenomenon to account for at least some of the difference in educational outcomes.

And girls battle ED’s at a much higher percentage than boys do. Should we boil them down to a group who cares about nothing but their looks and getting thinner?

Sorry, I’m a DP, but I agree with the poster you’re responding to. It sounds like you’re bringing up eating disorders to move away from the touchy subject of video game addiction. It is indeed real. But the reason boys are struggling in high school goes beyond video games. I’m curious why you think they’re going to college at lower rates than girls? The article pointed out reasons- higher paying jobs in the trades, namely - but is there anything parents can do differently to stop this trend?